I had to catch myself in Toronto during the festival press screening of Cloud Atlas,
the new film from Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis (Andy and Lana), and
carefully consider what it would mean to define their adaptation of
David Mitchell’s book as “novelistic.”

Writer/director Wayne Kramer traffics in immigrant collisions

With so much drama and so many crossed narrative lines, the comparisons to 'Traffic' and 'Crash' will seem blatant and overplayed, but the aim here is more tightly focused than it might initially seem. There's a lush, overgrown forest, but the tallest tree in the center is Max Brogan (Harrison Ford). He comes to illustrate all sides of the immigration debate without merely flip-flopping between positions. Grade: C.